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I am a nerd.
I am a gamer.
I am an advocate of International Tabletop Day.
(In my own respect.)
When I was younger, Mini Tony-Man wasn't much of a tabletop board gamer, as such inventions like the Nintendo Entertainment System (Remember those?!) were a relatively new thing, and my family was a military family and we moved often. I didn't really have a core of friends that wanted to play with me, either board games, or this strange little muddle known as "outside." So, as with a lot of my reviews, I'm going to caveat, that I probably wasn't a gamer in the purest sense, since I earned my title of gamer as a Mini Tony-Man, through electronic gaming. Not unlike most people of my generation of MTV, and "Instant One-Hour Photos" and Zack Morris preppy haircuts, and Bubble Tape.
Younger fans of this blog may have to Google those references.
Sure, I knew that while I was getting frustrated at the fact that the Princess was always in another castle. And loving the fact that it was always dangerous to go alone, so take this... I also was aware that somewhere beyond the TV, beyond the wall, over hills, and across the street, and in this castle of chaos known as "The Mall" was a KB Toystore that had these strange boxes which held concepts like...
Naval Warfare
Bumping into things, and politely excusing yourself
The journey from college to retirement
Buying out your competition, and building architecture
Surgery on an anatomically incorrect patient, and pulling out increasingly impossible things out of him.
Amongst other things. (Bonus points if you caught all of those references) Yes, I knew of these games. I even dabbled with a few of them on those rare times I got to see my cousins. Who were a generation of all females. (You'd think I'd be better with women, since I had 5 female cousins, and an older sister. But, that's a story for another day.) And even then, they were doing their own thing. So yeah.
As time went on, I became aware of new games, games that I've played that I've really liked, and for the interest of Tabletop day, I'd like to share five of my favorite tabletop games, in no particular order.
1) One Night Ultimate Werewolf
Fans of this blog will already know that I have harped and sung praises about this game, but honestly, I can't get enough of this game, literally. (Literally in this case used in a non-ironic sense, since I don't get to play this game enough.) It is a fun bluffing game that's mostly cooperative, but has the possibility for defectors. Game play is simple enough. Each player is given a role card, where you're either going to be on the Villagers' side, the Werewolves' side, or the Tanner. If you're a Villager, you want to kill at least one Werewolf. If you're a Werewolf, you want to ensure that all Werewolves live. If you're the Tanner, you're trying to get yourself killed. Play lasts for up to ten minutes, and you're trying to deduce who is what. The announcer will tell characters what to do, so there's no need to remember which role does what.
Pro: It's an exceptionally fun, addicting game that will want you to play many more times. The social interaction aspect of the game is key, and there's a fun psychological aspect to the game. And it plays in 10 minutes or less, which makes it worth playing at least four or five times, but you'll probably want to play more.
Con: The game says that it's from 3 to 10 players, but since it's a party game, the game is considerably less fun with less people. I would say to optimize the game, you need at least 7 people to play. In this day and age, finding 7 people or more to actually play the game is hard to do. And it also takes people who know how to be social enough to convey lies, trickery, and flimflam.
2) Zombies!!!
People who know me in real life will know that I have an affinity for the undead. Zombies, Vampires, Mummies, Liches... anything undead and I'll probably say "Undead are awesome!" So, when this game came out I was all about it! The objective of the game is pretty simple, but it's two-fold. You either A) be the first to get from Town Square to the Helipad, or B) be the first to kill 25 Zombies without dying. Simple, right? Not even close.
Each turn, a player puts down a city tile on a legal space, and then adds zombies according to the tile space. To determine movement you roll a six-sided dice, and you move up to that many. If you roll a six, you can choose to move up to six spaces, but you can end your movement before then, if you wish. You may not move diagonally, and you can only enter and exit named buildings through doors. When you enter into a space where a zombie is, you roll a six sided dice to fight off the zombie. A four or better kills the zombie. But what happens if you don't kill the zombie? Well, simple you can either A) use a bullet token that you might have to add +1 to your dice roll until you get a four or higher, or you can use one of your heart tokens to re-roll your dice. However, if you run out of heart tokens, you die.
Dying in this game is reasonably harsh. In the unfortunate event that you do die, you go all the way back to Town Square, and you lose half of your zombie count (rounded down) and you're that much further away from victory.
Another aspect to the game are these cards that you can get, which does two things: Help yourself with weapons and bonuses; and more importantly, dick over other players. So it's never clear cut who will win, even if other players seem way ahead of you, there are always cards that will help you out, or hinder their chances. Zombies!!! is a good game, meant for 2-6 players, with it probably being most fun with four.
Pro: The artwork on the cards is really incredible, the game play mechanics are streamlined and easy to understand. And there's always a smug sort of satisfaction when you fuck over your friends.
Con: Usually fucking over your friends is looked down upon, and its easy to get into a proverbial pissing contest rather than playing the game. Also, this game has pretty much a kajillion expansions to it, so if you're trying to get the full game, you'll be investing a lot of money into it, which is senseless since only two or three of them are worth getting.
3) Munchkin
Munchkin is a delightfully cruel parody of role-playing games and their myriad of tropes. As a role-player, I tend to harbor a special sort of hatred for these min-maxers, and game-breaking type characters. But in this game of Munchkin, the entire idea of the game is not to role-play. You just want to kick the door down, chop up the monsters, get the treasure, and level up. And Munchkin allows a player to do that without having to sit at the Tavern and talk to Dark McCloaky Ominous-Bad over there.
Game play is pretty simple. You have a Door deck which contains Monsters, and Curses, and sometimes Spells, and other odds and ends. And you have a Treasure deck which contains.... you guessed it, treasure. Such as the Chainsaw of Bloody Dismemberment, or the Boots of Running Really Fast, or the Gentleman's Club (that only males can use) or Broad Sword (that only females can use).
On the first turn, you're given eight cards, four Door cards, and four treasure cards. You lay down any cards that you can use on your turn. The first play then Kicks down the door, by revealing the top card of the door deck. If it is a monster, the player must fight the monster. If it is a curse, then the curse automatically affects the player. If the top card of the door deck is not a monster, then the player has two choices. Either go looking for trouble, by playing a monster card in his hand to fight. Or he could loot the room, by taking the next top card from the Door deck into his hand.
A player, after the initial draw must then discard down to five cards and end his turn. Each monster that you defeat will give you a level, and a treasure (Though many monster cards will tell you if you gain more treasure or more levels). Each monster also has a specific level which means that you have to have combat strength greater than that level. To determine your combat strength, you count up your level plus any bonuses you have from treasures. If a monster has too much strength you can ask other people for help, but.... if a monster looks too weak, those other people can make it harder for you to win.
To win, you must go from level 1, to level 10 before anyone else. Only then can you consider yourself the biggest Munchkin!
Pro: It's a delightfully hilarious parody of role-playing games. The game is easy enough to learn that it only takes one play through to fully understand the rules, but it also helps that one of the rules is "Cheating is legal, if you're not caught!"
Con: In my experience, Munchkin is a game that takes longer to play than it probably should. I've seen some real arguments break out because of this game. Munchkin seems like a game that can only be played with friends who are bonded like family.
4) The Resistance
The Resistance, like One Night Ultimate Werewolf, is a game that has defectors in it. Personally, I like these games the best, because of the psychological aspect behind it, and the social aspects. In this game, there are two teams. The Resistance of an oppressive Government, and the Spies of the Government that has infiltrated the Resistance ranks. The game is played in 5 rounds, and is for anywhere between 5 and 10 people. In a five player game, there are 3 Resistance members and 2 Spies. At the beginning of the game, all players are handed their role cards, and then once they know who they are, everyone closes their eyes. Then the announcer will tell the Spies and the Spies only to open their eyes and figure out who the Spies are. Then they close their eyes. And then everyone opens their eyes.
Each round, one player will be the mission leader. That person will then decide who goes on the mission. Once decided, all players will vote to either accept the mission, or decline the mission. If the majority accepts the mission, the next phase of the round begins, if the majority declines the mission, the round start over and the next player becomes the new mission leader. In the event that the mission is declined five times in a row, the Resistance loses, the Spies win.
Once the mission is accepted, those going on the mission are then handed Success cards, and Fail cards. Those on the mission will pick either Success or Fail in secret, depending on what they wish to do. If you are a Resistance member, you MUST choose Success. If you are a spy, you can CHOOSE to pick either Success or Fail, as befits your nefarious purposes. In order to succeed a mission, all cards once shuffled and turned over MUST say succeed. If even only one fail card is turned over, the mission fails.
The Resistance must win at least three rounds to win, if not... the Spies win.
Pro: It is a fun psychological game, that can be played in 15-20 minutes, and it's always worth it when the Spies win, and they reveal themselves at the end. It is a deception, deduction game that is always a blast whenever I play.
Con: While the game does do its best to balance out the chances for both Resistance and Spies to win, realistically, the game is more skewed towards savvy, cunning Spies. This game is also no where near as addicting as One Night Ultimate Werewolf (In my opinion)
5) Betrayal at House on the Hill
Betrayal at House on the Hill, is a miniature role-playing game that allows you to check out this spooky mansion in search of horror, excitement, and if you live... the faint possibility of fame. (But even fainter, fame for a good reason.) You get to take control of one of twelve people, including, gypsies, doctors, strong men, and children, or a sassy Latina... because why not? The game is meant for 2 to 6 people, with probably an optimum of 4 or 5. The game is separated into three phases, the exploration phase, the haunt, and the Oh shit, bad stuff.
Each character has four statistics, Strength, Speed, Knowledge, and Sanity. And each number to the stat determines how many dice you get to roll. If ever any one of your stat hits the skull marker, your character is dead. While going through the house, you'll see one of three symbols. An event symbol; which looks like a swirl, an Item symbol; which looks like a cattle's skull, and an Omen symbol which looks like a raven.
During the exploration phase, you're pretty much doing just that; exploring. You're laying down floor tiles, and doing whatever the floor tiles tell you. You'll find the aforementioned symbols. If you find an event symbol, you take an event card, read it out loud to everyone and do whatever it tells you. If you find an item symbol, you take an item card. Most of these items are things that can benefit you in some way or another. But you might find an omen card. These are very powerful items that may or may not help you. But these cards are what can trigger the haunt.
There are only twelve omens in the game, and each time you find an omen, you must make a haunt roll. you take six dice, and roll them, and you must roll over the number of current revealed omens in the game. Succeed, and exploration continues. Fail... and the haunt begins.
The haunt is determined by the final omen received and the current room where you found it. Someone is revealed to be the traitor, and that person receives the traitor's tome, so that person can read his win conditions, while the others reads the hero's tome to read their win conditions. (Usually the traitor is asked to leave, so the two sides can come up with their respective strategies. And once they are aware of what they must do, that's when the bad shit happens. Obviously the game ends once one side has completed their win conditions.
Pro: It's an Role-playing game in a box. With there being hundreds of ways to build the house, and fifty different haunt scenarios, the replay value is through the roof. Good friends, and maybe some ominous voices makes the game even better.
Con: The game usually has a tendency to make some characters appear worthless, the game also doesn't really care if its not balanced, which can be an annoyance for some players. Also, a lot of the haunt scenarios usually favor one side over another, which makes things even worse if the exploration phase wasn't particularly helpful.
With these five games in mind (and a bajillion others that are out there,) Have fun playing tabletop games, role-playing games, heck even video games, or poker, or thumb war, or whatever games that you find enjoyable. And as my hero, Wil Wheaton would say.... "Play more games!"
